Will Barnet’s portrait of his friend, art historian and educator Ruth Bowman, signals his return to portraiture in the 1960s after a period of painting abstractly. Bowman holds a cross-section of an apple, which she often used to explain principles of abstract form inherent in the natural world. Barnet’s painting, reflecting a new clarity of form and compression of space, establishes a two-dimensional world where shapes exist within a dynamic tension while concisely describing such details as the corner of a table and the action of the hands. Barnet knew he faced criticism when he returned to the figure, but he saw portraiture as a challenging extension of his abstract work. To Barnet, portraying people expanded rather than restricted his practice: “I felt that as long as I didn’t become a slave to reality, I had more room to grow with figurative art.”